DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- by the way, Kasich, who voted in favor of NAFTA when he was in congress, which has destroyed everything, and we're not going to let them vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We will get wiped out if they do that. We're not going to let it happen. So what happens is this. So Cruz gets just killed. Kasich gets killed. So now -- these guys have been doing this stuff all their life. I've only been doing it for nine months, right, and they have to double-team me. They have to double-team me.

You know, we took them out one by one. We have low-energy Jeb Bush -- and I was going to be nice to Jeb, but I saw he was interviewed today by somebody at NBC and he said bad things. He said, he's not a conservative. Give me a break. He is not a conservative. I am actually a conservative but I'm like smart too, where we have all of this stuff, it's like -- no, I was going to be nice to him, because I like a lot of the people that have disappeared one after another. It's a beautiful sight. Boom, boom, boom. And I was nice to Jeb Bush -- after he got defeated, I was nice. But here's what happens. So I hear he's interviewed today. I say, do me a favor. It's amazing what they can do. They have this thing and like two seconds later, they get me a copy of his interview. I say, let me know -- I figure they're going to give it to me in writing. Let me know, one of my guys, Dan, and he says, I've got it, sir. Like what, 11 seconds later. He's got a machine that's giving me the whole interview. What would you like? He presses Trump and it goes right to that section and he starts hitting me like -- and he did say, he's a gifted, gifted politician. He said that a while ago. And my wife said, why would he say that? I shouldn't tell you this. Maybe he's not so smart. Why would you say that, right? But he hits me today so I feel fine. He's a low-energy person. We don't need low-energy people. Just remember that. We need high energy. We need strength.

You know, Hillary -- Hillary, crooked Hillary, right? Crooked. She's crooked as you can be. Crooked Hillary. No, Crooked Hillary, she said very strongly, I don't like the tone of Donald Trump. The tone. Now, she there's shouting all night long reading off teleprompters. Does she ever make a speech where there's not -- I mean, she won the other night -- I'm sort of glad she won. I really want to beat her more than Sanders. And you know, the system is rigged on both sides. It's rigged on our side. I have 5 million -- I have so many votes more than like Cruz and Kasich and yet, you know, they go in and they sort of semi-bribe all these people and the delegates and all of a sudden -- it's just a terrible system. I mean, it's a terrible system.

But Hillary said, I don't like the tone. Now, here we are in a world that's going to hell, we have people's heads are being cut off. You know, not since medieval times -- I used to love history. It was like my favorite, I loved history. And you'd read about medieval times, right? Medieval times, chop off heads. Now we're chopping off heads. I mean, I didn't see anything about this. Even the wild west, they'd shoot you but they don't chop off the head. Chop off the heads, drown people in these big cages, 50 at a time, drop -- and she said, I don't like his tone. His tone is nasty. Folks, folks -- we need a tough tone, folks. We need a tough tone. We need a tough tone. Believe me. Believe me. For a while, at least, we're going to need it. You know, when they talked to lying Ted, so we were at the debate -- and I've been at the center of every single debate, number one. Number one. Won every debate according to all of the polls --

LEMON: All right, that's Donald Trump in Costa Mesa, California, and speaking there at a rally. He says, you know, the media never shows the crowds. Well we're showing the crowd. A big crowd for Donald Trump that they're turning out for him. Donald Trump mentioning an interview with Jeb Bush. He said it was NBC but actually it was here on CNN, formerly of NBC was our special correspondent, Jamie Gengel. Jamie did that interview with Jeb Bush. Jamie, let's listen to some of the interview and then you and I will talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[23:05:06] JAMIE GENGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think the race is over? Is he the presumptive nominee?

JEB BUSH (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, not yet. I'm a Ted Cruz supporter because I want to support a consistent conservative that actually could win. I don't think that Donald Trump could beat the Democratic nominee.

GENGEL: Do you think there's still a viable stop-Trump movement?

BUSH: My personal belief is, if Trump is the nominee, my views have been pretty consistent about this -- we'll lose the senate and we'll lose the presidency in a landslide and our country can't afford that.

GENGEL: Do you think the Republican Party should get around him if he's the nominee?

BUSH: I think they should support Ted Cruz.

GENGEL: So yesterday, Ted Cruz announced that his vice presidential pick would be Carly Fiorina.

BUSH: Yes.

GENGEL: Was that a hail Mary pass? BUSH: Picking a candidate that is talented, tough, she takes on Trump

really well, I think, and she takes on Hillary Clinton very well as well, someone who has got a proven record and who has been vetted as a candidate, I thought was a smart move by Ted Cruz.

GENGEL: You think it was the right pick?

BUSH: Yes, yes I do. I'm impressed with her.

GENGEL: You've said in the past that you didn't think that Donald Trump was ready to be president. But if he is the nominee, will you support him?

BUSH: I don't think he's a serious person.

GENGEL: You haven't changed your mind?

BUSH: No. I've seen nothing -- the recent speech about foreign policy was -- I don't know which Donald Trump to believe, the one that read from a teleprompter a speech that was inside the lines, or the one that wants to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Which Donald Trump is the one that's expressing these views? There's two of them and I think we need a president with a steady hand.

GENGEL: It sounds like you won't vote for him.

BUSH: I hope I'm not faced with that dilemma.

GENGEL: Do you think there's a case to be made for Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton if he is the nominee?

BUSH: No. No. A third term of Barack Obama's hyper-aggressive use of executive power to create massive uncertain for our economy --

GENGEL: Let me try it one more time. You're not voting for Hillary Clinton?

BUSH: No way.

GENGEL: And you don't think Republicans should vote for Hillary Clinton to stop Donald Trump?

BUSH: No. I don't think we should support Hillary Clinton.

GENGEL: Looking back at the campaign, how do you feel about how you did, what you did -- ?

BUSH: Yes. Well, I don't think about it too much. I've concluded that whatever mistakes I've made -- and I've certainly made them -- probably wouldn't have changed the outcome.

GENGEL: What do you think happened?

BUSH: It's definitely a crazy year. Look, Donald Trump was -- still is a phenomenon.

GENGEL: And if Donald Trump is the nominee, should the Republican Party, will you rally around him?

BUSH: I am hopeful that he won't be the nominee.

GENGEL: Do you think you'll ever run for politics again?

BUSH: Who, me?

GENGEL: Yes.

BUSH: I've learned to never say never, but this was my chance. This was the chance and I ran into a storm.

GENGEL: No regrets, though?

BUSH: No. None at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And there it is. Jamie Gengel, what an interesting interview. This is his first since he quit the race back in February. You tried to pin him down on if he would support Donald Trump but he wouldn't say. If push comes to shove and Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, do you think that he's going to give in?

GENGEL: You know, I -- you saw me try on camera. I asked him off camera. He wouldn't tell me. But look, he really, spoiler alert, Jeb Bush does not like Donald Trump. And you've been talking earlier in the program about Republicans who may simply sit out this race. I'm just guessing here but I think that if Trump is the nominee, Jeb Bush could be in that group that sits out.

LEMON: Oh, really? So I had Kayleigh McEnany on, who is a Trump supporter, she's on CNN all the time, she's a CNN contributor here -- she said that she believes that Jeb Bush left some wiggle room in that and I said, I didn't see any wiggle room. Did you?

GENGEL: No. I heard that earlier. I don't think there's any wiggle room. Look, he waited two months. It's been two months since he lost in South Carolina and dropped out of the race. He's waited a long time to break his silence and the reason he's doing it now is one word -- Indiana.

[23:10:07] And he's hoping that he may be able to be of some help in encouraging people to vote for Ted Cruz. They see Indiana as the firewall for any hope of getting to a contested convention. That's what today was about. I also think that he was ready to start talking, but the timing was, we're five days out from Indiana. If there's any hope of a contested convention, this is the week.

LEMON: Surprising that he said he won't rule out another run for office?

GENGEL: I was very surprised. I really was. But he is -- we've talked about him over the years. He is a policy wonk. He would have liked to sit there today with me and talk about education and issues. He is going to go back into -- he has an education foundation. He's going to go back into that and be working on that again. And so I don't know what he had in mind, but he hasn't ruled it out.

LEMON: Any regrets, Jamie?

GENGEL: For him, he said no regrets, that he was glad he did it. I think that he was very honest. He said that he had made mistakes along the way but I thought the word he used was correct. He said he ran into a storm, and nobody, none of us expected this year and so he didn't know either, but I thought that he was very reflective about it.

LEMON: Yes. Jamie Gengel, great interview. Thank you. And you know he said, Donald Trump is a phenomenon.

GENGEL: Thank you.

LEMON: Yes, you're welcome, always. Good to see you, Jamie. He said, Donald Trump is a phenomenon, speaking of Jeb Bush. Phenomenon is speaking there now in California. We're going to be back to discuss that with my guests right after this break.

TRUMP: -- we're going to make you so depressed, but don't be depressed, because we're going to fix it fast. Orange County, we --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:46] LEMON: All right. Pictures of Donald Trump in Orange County, California, tonight, giving a speech. He's speaking to a cheering crowd. It's in Costa Mesa, California, specifically. So joining me now to discuss this now is John Phillips, the talk radio host at KEBC in Los Angeles who is backing Donald Trump. Lanhee Chen, former senior adviser to Marco Rubio, and Buck Sexton, CNN political commentator who is supporting Ted Cruz.

So, there's a lot to talk about. We have got the Jeb interview, we have got the coach today who endorsed Donald Trump, and we've got the editorial writers of "The Indianapolis Star" that had some scathing words for Donald Trump. Let me read some of it and then I'll get your response. They said, a president Trump would be a danger to the United States and the world. Pretty damning words. Do you think this is going to hurt him in a very crucial state? First you, John.

JOHN PHILLIPS, TALK RADIO HOST, KEBC: No, I don't think so. He's leading in the polls right now in Indiana, a state that Ted Cruz said is central to his ability to force a contested convention in Cleveland. I think Donald Trump will ultimately prevail there. He's got huge numbers in California right now. In fact, if you add up Ted Cruz and John Kasich's numbers together, you still don't reach where Donald Trump is. The newspaper editorial boards all across the nation don't like him, save for a couple in New York State. I don't think it's going to stop his momentum one bit.

LEMON: Not at all. What about you, buck?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think the editorial is going to make a bit of a difference. I think that Ted Cruz is going to come out ahead in Indiana, largely because the Cruz campaign is setting it up as a replay of what they did in Wisconsin, which was a very successful formula for them and it was the most recent serious victory that the Cruz campaign has had, and there's some demographic similarities in the state and also in terms of organization and getting major figures in the state just as they did in Wisconsin to come along. So I think they're going to get a replay of that, and so the polls right now that show Trump a little bit ahead, I think that they're close to the margin of error, they're going to get closer as the days go by, and I think you'll see Cruz eek out a victory there, but California is going to be its own challenge and I am not as confident about my prediction for that just yet but I think that Indiana will go with the Cruz camp and I don't think this editorial from "The Indianapolis Star" is going to make any difference, and quite honestly, whenever you have in the headline, Kasich is your best bet or something like that -- no conservatives, neither Trump nor Cruz supporters pay any attention to that whatsoever.

LEMON: That's not a ringing endorsement when you say, oh, well your best bet is, this person, doesn't say --

SEXTON: Exactly. They're kind of throwing up their hands and saying, eh, whatever.

LEMON: They don't really like anyone, because they say, it is unfortunate in a nation of 320 million people, the voters must choose the next American president from a disappointing field of candidates now competing in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

SEXTON: Disappointing? You've got like a constitutional law genius, you've got a billionaire, you've got a woman who was secretary of -- I don't like Hillary as a presidential candidate but she's pretty impressive. Disappointing? You've got Bernie Sanders who's creating his own political revolution from the left. I mean, I don't know. I want to take this up with "The Indianapolis Tribune" or whatever and tell them that they can do better than that.

LEMON: But, to that point, though, Lanhee, the only people who have pretty good favorable ratings are Kasich and Sanders. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have very high unfavorable numbers.

LANHEE CHEN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, MARCO RUBIO FOR PRESIDENT: Yes, well that's a function of a couple things. First of all, no one's hit Kasich really yet. So his favorables are still pretty high because he's a relatively undefined figure. He's been able to define himself as this sort of nice --

LEMON: And Ted Cruz has unfavorable, high unfavorable numbers as well.

CHEN: Yes, but there too, Cruz has been attacked by Trump and they've attacked each other. Hillary's being attacked by everybody. She's been in the public light for a long time so that totally makes sense. I think though, Don, what you're seeing is, this is one of the issues that the anti-Trump movement has run into, which is that there hasn't been coalescence around a single opponent, and I think that's made it much more difficult, in fact, for the anti-Trump or never-Trump movement to gain traction. You have Cruz, you have Kasich, and although they have their alliance, they really haven't settled on a single person. Kasich's got the problem, of course, that many people see him as being too moderate. Cruz has the likability problem, and so you run into this thing, such as "The Indianapolis Star Tribune" editorial said, where it's like, well, we don't want Trump, but we can't really tell you what to be for, and I think that ends up being quite problematic.

[23:20:01] LEMON: John, you back Donald Trump. Not doing so well with women voters. Are you on board with this attack on Hillary saying that she's playing the woman card?

PHILLIPS: Look, I don't think the general election has even begun yet. He still hasn't locked up the 1,237 delegates, and as soon as he starts giving Hillary Clinton a little tender, loving care, I think you're going to see her numbers get taken with a torpedo as well. So I think that -- also, when he starts going after Hillary Clinton, his numbers among Republican women are going to start to go up, so it's not a long-term problem.

LEMON: Are you OK though -- my question was, are you OK with this attack on Hillary saying that she's playing the woman card?

PHILLIPS: Yes, because the recipe for success for Democrats has been identity politics. One of the reasons that Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012 was you saw unbelievable minority turnout. Now Hillary Clinton is an old, rich, white woman, so she's not going to get that level of turnout in 2016, so she needs to try to create it or manufacture enthusiasm with women, and I just don't think it's going to work.

SEXTON: I also think the Trump campaign has some very useful surrogates in Ivanka, Donald Trump's daughter, and in Melania, his wife, and I think they'll be an important part of the messaging, assuming he does win the primary. I am still a Ted Cruz supporter, by the way, but just to be fair to Donald Trump and women, I think that you'll see more of that, I think that's quite likely.

LEMON: I was wondering if there was some big announcement that you were going to make.

SEXTON: No, I just felt the need to jump in.

PHILLIPS: I can tell, Buck is going to end up on the Trump train.

SEXTON: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I am never-Hillary, I'm not never-Trump, but nonetheless, I do think that he has -- I think that there are some ways that Donald will be able to, if he in fact wins the primary, which I don't think he will. I think Ted Cruz will, but if Donald wins, there are some things he can do to help his numbers with women, I think.

LEMON: He might be pushing the drink cart in the Trump train. Who knows, we'll see. All right, stay with me, everyone. We've got a whole lot more to talk about when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Back with me now, John Phillips, Lanhee Chen, and Buck Sexton. OK, so Lanhee, Donald Trump has a lead. There is Donald Trump speaking live now, I should mention, in Costa Mesa, California, having a big rally there, thousands of people have shown up for this rally. Look at the size of that crowd. I mean, you can't deny -- I know that you're a Cruz supporter. You felt like you were Jedi mind tricked in the last segment because you were like, wait a minute, I'm not on the Trump train. But you can't deny the size of the crowds that turn out for both Donald Trump and for Bernie Sanders.

SEXTON: No. The enthusiasm is obvious, it's undeniable, and also the showmanship and the skills, quite honestly, on the stage, really of both of them, I know people don't think of Bernie Sanders as being a great entertainer. They think of him as somebody who's earnest in his positions and is speaking truth, but he also has a delivery that sort of adds to his earnest and compelling message, I think, and the same thing's true with -- well, and Donald Trump is really a whole next level when it comes to being entertaining, but you see this everywhere he goes across the country and it's why he's been able to be a political dynamo without having all of the things in place that one would have though, without having the ground game, without having the sort of consultant -- he's thrown all of that out, and it's because he can stand in front of tens of thousands of people and all they want to do is hear every word out of his mouth. Whether they're true or not, whether it's good policy, that's where things start to fall apart for people like me, but, now I'm back in the center --

LEMON: Now you're back in the Cruz camp.

SEXTON: -- but it is wildly entertaining sometimes and that's why he's still at the top of the polls.

LEMON: John, care to comment?

PHILLIPS: Yes, check his pockets. I think there's a ticket for the Trump train in there. (laughter) If you go back into California politics, California is the land of entertainers. We've got all the A-listers in Hollywood, all the best singers, dancers, actors, but for whatever reason, our politicians are really boring. People like Gray Davis and Pete Wilson and Kevin McCarthy -- I can't think of any politician in California that's been able to draw a crowd of that size, except for maybe Arnold Swarzenegger. This is something that is really unique to California politics. It's also, I think, worth noting that he's in Orange County, which is one of the most conservative counties in California. All we heard all week was, well, he won in Maryland, he won in New York, he won in Delaware, he won in all these blue states. Try going to where Republicans actually live and winning there, producing huge crowds there. This is where he's at right now, Orange County, rock rib Republicans. This was Barry Goldwater's backbone when he ran in '64. This is a very significant evening right now.

LEMON: Let's talk about the numbers, Lanhee. Let's see. Among -- for GOP presidential nominee, among likely Indiana GOP primary voters. Donald Trump, 41 percent, Ted Cruz, 33 percent. If Ted Cruz loses Indiana, toast? CHEN: He is going to be in a very bad place if he loses Indiana. There's no question about that. I think -- the big thing for Ted Cruz is, can he replicate what happened in Wisconsin? There are some reasons to believe that might be the case. There's sort of a sensibility maybe that would be similar between Indiana voters and Wisconsin voters, however, there are reasons to believe that maybe it's more favorable to reign for Trump because there may be more rural voters and to a certain degree, you might still have some Kasich bleed-over from Ohio, even though they have that alliance now. So it's difficult to say exactly what will happen, but I do think that if Cruz loses in Indiana, he is in a world of hurt. Just on California briefly, I think it'll be interesting to look at two issues, geography and demography. I think the geography of California requires basically that there be five or six separate campaigns waged at once, because you've got so many different parts of the state that really behave differently, and then the demography matters as well because in some parts of Southern California, you are going to see the Latino vote and the Asian vote matter a lot because you're not talking about a lot of Republicans in some of these congressional districts, so it is potentially an opportunity for Cruz and Kasich to engage in some delegate acquisition, assuming that Trump doesn't have it locked up by then.

LEMON: So is this, Buck, a lesser of two evils? Because remember, Senator Lindsey Graham, now, famously said that choosing between Trump and Cruz is like choosing between a shot or being poisoned.

SEXTON: Well, I definitely don't take my political advice from Lindsey Graham. But I would say that it depends on who you're asking. I mean, if you're asking the GOP establishment, such as it is, I think very clearly they do view thi -- they do view Cruz as essentially the more palatable choice right now. But the establishment will go wherever the power is, that whoever is (ph) most likely to win.

I think that obviously if you're asking Cruz supporters, they think that he's the most conservative candidate that has been up for office in decades, and the conservative base is certainly with him. Donald Trump has expanded well beyond the conservative base with his voters. He's got people who aren't even -- don't describe themselves as conservatives, some of them haven't even voted in recent elections. I mean, it's changed the map, the electoral map, at least of the primaries in dramatic ways.

I would point out, though, that all the enthusiasm we see for Trump in California and also obviously the sweep of all these blue states in the Northeast recently, he's going to lose all those states to either Bernie or Hillary Clinton. So while it's good for the Trump campaign in the interim, right now, that he's going to do well for the purposes of the primary, we should also keep in mind that as a general election candidate, he could have a rally for 30,000 people, the most exciting thing anyone's ever seen in California, I'm sorry to say, he's going to lose California to either Hillary or Bernie. So for those who want to see a Republican of some kind in the White House, it's disconcerting. It's not that exciting at a minimum to see him doing well in those states. Because it doesn't really matter in the long term. LEMON: OK. (Inaudible) but I want to be sure you talked about drawing all these crowds in California or wherever -- where did you say -- what else?

SEXTON: Oh, the Northeastern states, and all these blue states --

LEMON: So drawing all these crowds. Let's look at the crowds now because they're -- you see the flashing lights here, that's because protestors have spilled out into the streets here, they're blocking traffic. There's no violence as of right now but again, these are protestors at the Donald Trump rally, Costa Mesa, California. And that's where he's delivering a speech inside, but those protestors are outside and they've begun to block some traffic. Police there are on the scene.

Do you think, though, because people have said that it's demographically impossible for Donald Trump to win, but is that underestimating some other factors? Turning out for Hillary Clinton? The turnout for other candidates? The enthusiasm on the Democratic side? (Inaudible).

SEXTON: I think the way that Donald Trump supporters would say he could win -- look, if Ted Cruz wins, the way he can get the nomination is if you have a massive conservative turnout within the base, right? That is a base election. With Donald Trump you have a slightly different phenomenon. You have people, white, middle- and working- class Americans, who are in a lot of Rust Belt states or in places where there's some contest between Democrat and Republicans, it's not clear. They may come out and vote perhaps even for the first time. And they have cross-over of Democrats -- of sort of, what would have been called blue -- Blue Dog Democrats and others, coming over to vote for a Republican. That's how he could win at that level, but we'll have to see if that -- it's tough to gauge that in advance.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

LEMON: Coming up here on CNN, we're going to talk about the Democrats, but again, that's Donald Trump in California there. And again, some protestors have spilled out on to the street. They're blocking traffic. We'll continue to monitor that.

We're going to talk about Bernie Sanders. He says don't count him out. We're going to turn to the Democrats, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right, let's discuss the Democrats now. CNN Political Commentator Angela Rye is here. Bob Beckel, author of I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV and Addiction, and Bill Press, Bernie Sanders' supporter and author of Buyer's Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down. Good evening, everyone.

BOB BECKEL: Good evening, Don.

ANGELA RYE: Good evening.

BILL PRESS: Don.

LEMON: Mr. Press, let's take a look at what Donald Trump said just a few minutes ago about (inaudible).

PRESS: Oh, boy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP: Crooked Hillary, she said, very strongly, I don't like the tone of Donald Trump.' The tone. Now she's there shouting all night long, reading off teleprompters. Does she ever make a speech where there's not -- I mean, she won the other night. I'm sorta glad she won, you know, I really want to beat her more than Sanders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Trump has been talking about the woman card, too, and now he says she is shouting.' I mean, is he playing fair do you think, here?

PRESS: Well, I don't know whether he's playing sane, when you talk about Donald Trump.

LEMON: Well, is he playing with fire?

PRESS: Well, yes. Look, I think he is. I don't know how you can expect to win the nomination but maybe -- but not the presidency, by attacking 53 percent of American voters, namely American women. And I just think this is going down the wrong track. I'm sure Republicans are, you know, just having a fit every time they hear this guy who is their presumptive nominee, he's going into one feminist attack after another.

LEMON: But is it fair to say that he's attacking women because he, you know, he said that Jeb Bush was low-energy. He says Lying Ted.' Now she is, what is she --

RYE: Crooked Hillary.

LEMON: Crooked Hillary. So, crooked. What's the difference between the way he's attacking the male, his male counterparts, and he's attacking Hillary Clinton?

PRESS: I think because he's talking about the shouting, he's talking about her voice. He talks about her tone. I think they're very clearly sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton and I don't think they're going to work.

LEMON: OK. Do you agree with that, Angela?

RYE: I -- well, here's the thing. He blatantly called it playing the woman card.' And he said that if she were a man she wouldn't even have 5 percent of the vote. So I think the reality of it is, everyone else sees it as an attack, Don, to the point where Hillary Clinton's campaign has give -- offered supporters an actual woman card in a fundraising e-mail. To say, listen, we'll play with it. She said, Deal me in.' She used some great lines to respond to Donald Trump. I'm ready for a T-shirt, right, like -- it's like, seriously. If you're saying that this is -- she's playing the woman card, how can you deny that this woman who has made it this far with well over 12 million votes thus far, right? That she's not playing the woman card, she's playing history. That's what this is, is history --

LEMON: Mr. Beckel?

RYE: -- and Donald Trump isn't ready for that.

BOB BECKEL: Well, I don't -- you listen to Trump and did you notice, did he say anything about a policy difference between him and Hillary? No. He went after her personally. And I noticed that the last segment they talked about blue-collar Democrats, Reagan Democrats, crossing over. First of all, let me try to give you a little education. There aren't enough of them. There are not enough of them to elect Donald Trump dog catch. And, for the most part, a lot of those people either will vote Democratic or will stay home. And as far as enthusiasm, all you have to do is say Trump.' That's all the enthusiasm you need.

LEMON: Bob, do you -- do you remember last time, in 2012, when all of a sudden -- I just remember on the Republican side when the numbers started coming in, it was like, what? What happened, right? You don't think that -- you may be in for some of that this time? Are you a little -- and Democrats, and maybe Hillary Clinton -- maybe a little over-confident?

BECKEL: No. I was over-confident when we ran against Reagan in 1980, when I was at the White House. But in this case, no. I mean, this guy -- you've got to be kidding me. I mean, he's in Orange County, California. He's got that big crowd. Big deal. They're all going to get ready to get on the tee tomorrow morning --

LEMON: He's been underestimated since he got in here. You, on this program, said, It'll never happen. He'll be out by, he'll be out by September. He'll be out by the fall. He'll be out by December. He'll be out by' -- he's still here.

RYE: You know what, Don? The exit polls from the election night just a couple days ago shows that Democrats have quite an enthusiasm -- there was a gap, now there's quite a bit of enthusiasm on the Democratic side. I think we can thank Donald Trump for that.

PRESS: Hey, hey Don?

LEMON: Go ahead, Bill.

PRESS: I just want to point out that -- listen, in 2012, the people who were over-confident were the Mitt Romney people. They actually thought they were going to win. All those guys told me they were going to win. They were so dead-wrong, but I want to take your point. I think Democrats could make a mistake in taking Donald Trump for granted and underestimating him. Which is why I think they've got to expose him from the very beginning the way the Republicans did not. And if they do that, we're going to be fine.

BECKEL: But you know, they've got to do that -- he's done that to himself. I mean, they exposed themselves, this is not a tough opposition research job in front of us here. And you know the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has not yet stepped into the arena of national politics at the presidential level where people actually take their votes seriously. And I think he's just going to get absolutely --

Now, you say, have I gone too far out on a limb? Not in the least. I said to you before, Hillary Clinton could beat him from jail, and I believe she could beat him from a SuperMax jail.

LEMON: Wait a minute, wait a minute, Angela. Did you -- did you take in what he just said?

RYE: I did. But I -- I have a point, and my point is this. Donald Trump is showing up in a new form. We don't know what Donald Trump we're going to get. Like, remaking himself literally before our eyes right now. We can't count that out, literally, the clip that you played, Don, he said, well, can you see -- have you seen Hillary Clinton? She has to use a tele -- he had to stop himself because dude, you just used the teleprompter earlier today! So he's still re- inventing himself.

LEMON: I do have to say, though, I do have to say, when I watched, it was -- Donald Trump was not the Donald Trump that we're used to seeing. The one that you see tonight. Is he still speaking, by the way? I'm not sure. The one that you see onstage tonight, is not -- he's still going. With the teleprompter, he was a different guy. So, I love it when people say, oh, you know, it's -- reading the teleprompter is not that easy.'

RYE: It's not.

BECKEL: Well, you've proved it is. But look --

RYE: Wow, Bob.

LEMON: Was that out of context? I'll take that as a compliment. Bob, before you -- let me put this up, because this makes a point as to what you were saying. This is a recent poll, gives Hillary Clinton a double-digit lead over him in a general election, right? So again, as we were saying, I don't know if we have that poll, it's supposed to be in the next block -- in the E block. It's the first thing, if you guys see it. But -- there it is, right there.

It gives her a double-digit lead, but still, I mean, come on. Fifty to 39 percent is not that big a deal. The question is, underestimating Trump, when as Angela says, he keeps reinventing himself every time.

Go ahead, Bob. BECKEL: He can't reinvent himself, though. The guy's got 69 years of history and it's all bad.

RYE: They're ignoring it.

BECKEL: It would be like taking Al Capone and reinventing him into a preacher.

RYE: These folks are ignoring it, Bob. They're -- they're literally ignoring -- we have talked about his history, we've talked about the bad things that he did with his father who was pretty much a slumlord, we've gone through all of that. These folks ignore it. It doesn't matter. He literally (inaudible) --

BECKEL: These folks --

LEMON: Bill, Bill.

BECKEL: These people, that crowd, but Bill Clinton's grandfather used to run hookers. I mean, that was OK.

LEMON: Oh my gosh, OK.

PRESS: Listen, I want to get back -- I'm going to be maybe the skunk at the lawn party here, I'm telling you, this is an anti- establishment, anti-politics-as-usual year, and Donald Trump does have an appeal among those working class Americans. And Angela's right, they don't care about the policies. They just like the fact that he takes people on, that he's different, that he's the outsider. I was telling Bob a little earlier, I had lunch with a group of union presidents of major labor unions yesterday. They are worried about their members that are telling them they like Donald Trump, and they like him because he's opposed to those trade deals, he's for -- he says he's for jobs. It's all BS but there's a certain appeal there we got to be careful about.

LEMON: OK, stand by everyone.

BECKEL: -- very small sliver of the American electorate.

LEMON: All right, Bob. Bob, the hookers thing, I mean, come on.

BECKEL: It was! It's true! His grandfather's dead, it was fine. I mean, I don't have any problem with that.

LEMON: All right, Bob.

RYE: Oh, Lord.

LEMON: Listen, I promise you when we come back we're going to talk about Bernie Sanders again. Bernie Sanders says don't count him out just yet and I'll let you get in, Bill, since you're a supporter. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: All right, we're back now live. Donald Trump still speaking in California. And there are still crowds outside. We told you earlier that some protestors had spilled out into the streets, blocking traffic. There, you see them there. So far, no violence, but we'll continue to monitor those picture and the situation there in Costa Mesa, California, and bring you any updates as we get them.